Picking the winners

Jerod and I worked our way through all 272 entries. If every submission was 250 words, that’s 68,000 words in fewer than four days … the equivalent of reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

But that hard work paid off because we discovered some outstanding answers for why online authority is essential.

The winning essays did it by answering the question with a crisp, meaningful story introduced by a compelling headline.

You’ll get to read each of the winners here on Copyblogger. We’ll publish the grand prizewinning essay on Friday December 20th, followed by the four remaining essays each Friday after that.

And speaking of winners, drumroll please …

Second Prize …

Nick Evans, Joe Pawlikowski, and Mark Wayland!

Each of these fine gentlemen will get a one-year membership to Authority and have their essays published on Copyblogger.

First Prize …

Abbey Dieteman!

Abbey wins a lifetime membership to Authority and will have her essay published on Copyblogger.

And the Grand Prize goes to …

Anthony wins a ticket to our Authority Intensive conference, a lifetime membership to Authority, and will have his essay published on Copyblogger. Congratulations Anthony!

*Thank you to everyone who entered, for your time, your talent, and your hard-fought answers. This contest was a success because of you. When you get a chance, congratulate the winners in the comments below. And start sharpening your writing chops for next time!

Demian Farnworth

Want to graduate from the minor to the major leagues? Dominate your domain with an authorial voice that people listen to? Demian Farnworth can help you go from being a good writer to a great one. Learn more. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Bruce, providing individual feedback was not possible, but we are planning to do a recap post (or possibly a Google Hangout … or both) once all of the entries have been posted where we will discuss why we chose the ones we did, plus some general observations made while going through them all.

Also, if I may suggest an improvement for the future contests – as I certainly hope there will be future contests – to have a different system for submission of the entries. Nothing fancy. just a simple form that actually gives one some sort of a confirmation that the entry was received.

Lena, there’s a way to add yourself as a recipient/ be notified when you upload your document to Drive and set the “share” settings. Maybe not as reassuring as a manual confirmation but you can at least see that the upload worked.

I agree, Lena. I wasn’t sure, other than the fact it said “shared,” that it was actually received. It would also be nice to be able to see all of the submissions, either before or after the contest, so we can learn from others. Lots of great talent on this site.

Congratulations and well done to all the winners. Looking forward to reading the essays and the recap post.
Submitting an entry to ‘professional scrutiny’ is an ego challenge, and a motivational thrill. Thanks for providing the opportunity for sweaty palms and a racing heart while hitting send. Blog posting now seem like child’s play.

Man, I can’t tell you how stoked I am that you even took the time to check the site out. Thanks Demian. What you and everyone does at Copyblogger is provide tremendous value and inspires me to do the same.

The exercise was rewarding in itself. With every iteration of my entry, I could see yet another Copyblogger axiom that would make it better. Of course, after I hit the send button, I saw a half a dozen more.

Congratulations to all the winners! I hope you’re ready for the traffic coming your way. 🙂

Thanks to Jerod, Demian and the rest of the fine folks here, for the chance to sharpen our writing. Crafting an effective 250-word essay is hard to do. I’m looking forward to reading the winning entries, and learning what it takes to make the Copyblogger cut.